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“Need help, Boss?” Pierce offered his hand to the Leader of the Saints, in an attempt to help him get out of the Halbert.
“Oi there, I’m not a cripple,” The Boss growled, annoyed at the lieutenant’s suggestion that he needed help. “I can handle myself.”
“Gee, okay…” Pierce raised his hands up, as he stepped back from the car to give the Boss some space. His expression was fearful, as the man was not used to being yelled at by the Boss like that.
Zackary took the cane from the passenger seat of his Halbert. The walking stick was made out of hardwood, with golden trimming all over it, and a golden handle in a shape of a female torso. It was custom made, costing several thousand dollars to make, but in Stilwater, having a cane like this meant you were of a high status. Zack carefully put the walking stick outside the Halbert, as he placed the bottom of it on the ground, and put all of his weight on it, right before using it to help himself out of the car. It required a lot of work, but the Boss considered it to be a better alternative to making others believe he was weak, and give them any ideas for a rebellion.
“Where is everyone?” The Boss asked, as he fixed the purple fedora on his head, making sore that the several loose strains of his ginger hair were safely tucked under his fedora. He could see some of the grunts around the docks, but couldn’t see any of the lieutenants among them.
“Right this way.” Pierce started walking towards the warehouse, slowly so that the Boss could keep up with his pace. The docks were one of the busiest parts of Stilwater, however this corner of the district tended to be a lot more deserted. Until recently, this was the Brotherhood’s territory the most ruthless out of the four gangs of Stilwater, and you could see this all around the neighborhood, as there was a picture of a red wolf, the Brotherhood's signature, painted on every house, building, and warehouse.
This dock specifically, which was located in the heart Stoughton neighborhood, has been the leather clad gang's main base of operation since their arrival in Stilwater. However, when the Saints got resurrected from the dead, the gang made one crucial mistake, which was deciding to show the Leader of the Saints where was their safehouse. Zack used this against the gang and organized an assault on their headquarters, successfully killing almost all of their members and greatly crippling their leader. Now it was only left to locate where Maero run off to and finally end the Brotherhood by putting his head above the fireplace in the Saints Hideout.
The two men walked inside the abandoned warehouse; the Saints lieutenants were hanging out just a little bit deeper inside.
"This place is unstable, are you sure we should be inside?" Zackery gripped his pimp cane, as he barely kept his pace with Pierce's.
"I dunno, I think we're good." Pierce didn't seem to care as much, after all, if Brotherhood could practically live in the rundown warehouse for years, there's no chance this building will fall down on their head all of sudden. "You know, something weird one of the guys mentioned, but there are a few cars missing."
"Bloody how?” His cockney accent got rougher “Were they here when we raided the place?"
"Shit, I don't know." The wannabe singer replied, "Joey just noticed they weren't here this morning." Joey was a nickname for the Saints' mechanic. His real name was Jovan, with J pronounced as Y, and he has been running with the Saints since the old days, one of the critical players in their fight against the Westside Rollerz. With him living around the low-income kids of the old Saint’s Row and Shivington, the gang nicknamed him into something shorter and easier to pronounce.
“Well, that’s bloody great…” The Boss didn’t like this uncertainty, if there was something wrong with the cars, he would want to know it right away.
“Anyway, here we are.” Pierce walked the Boss through a door, which divided one part of the ground floor from another. That area offered privacy, and didn’t have that many Saints walking around, which is where the four other lieutenants took refuge as they coordinated the cleanup operation. In there, there was a corner where the Boss had his first meeting with the leader of the Brotherhood; his private tattoo room. It was well lit and had shelves and counters installed on the side of it, with its ceiling caved in, and covered with only 2 pieces of plywood.
Almost all of the Saints’ lieutenants were present in that room, with the two of them completing the group. Shaundi sat in the corner of the cubicle, with her back against the wall, as she was smoking a blunt and gave Boss a small wave as he showed up behind the corner. Jovan was tinkering a little further away, playing with a small hole in the wall. He had just finished fixing the lights on the 4 th floor and found himself a new task. Johnny stood in the opposite corner from Shaundi with his arms crossed, looking menacingly. He didn't know how to contribute to the gang's current project, and the best he could do is just wait for instructions. Lastly, Ramona stood against the counters, looking at her clipboard, which laid still on the counter.
"Hey, Boss." Gat greeted the ginger, and approached him for a fist bump. "How's your knee?"
Zack gladly accepted the fist bump from his friend, before hearing the question he asked. For a moment, he stayed silent, putting his hands together on the walking cane, as the Boss stared at the middle of the cubicle, where the concrete floor seemed to be a little extra dusty compared to the rest of the room.
That’s where the Boss hurt his leg. During his epic showdown with the Leader of the Brotherhood on the rooftop of their hideout, a fight got physical at one point, causing the weak, half torn down roof to collapse and causing both of the men to fall down four floors. Zackery was lucky to survive the fall, and only hurt his knee in the fall. He was even luckier that Maero also got hurt and decided to flee the scene before one of them could emerge victorious from their battle.
“It’s seen better days.” Zackery said to Johnny, who was smirking. “This how you felt back in the day?”
Johnny wasn’t a stranger to getting into harm's way. When they were banding together to take down the Vice Kings, Johnny hurt his knee in his show-off with Big Tony. “Don’t worry, it stops hurting at one point. After that, you only gotta worry about the rain.”
“Bloody great…” The Boss said under his breath, as he used his right hand to reach into the pocket inside of his black blazer, pulling out a small orange container. The doctor he saw about the injury prescribed him with Oxycodone/Paracetamol, which was a painkiller used to treat severe pain. He swallowed one tablet of it, before sliding it back into his pocket.
“Whatcha poppin’?” Gat asked him.
“Some pills doctor gave me.” Zackery was too lazy to pull out the container again, so he tried to remember the name of it. “Oxygen Paracetamol or something.”
“Oxycodone Paracetamol?” Shaundi’s voice came from the corner of the room, and interrupted the two men. “You better not mix that with alcohol.”
“Thanks, Shaundi.” He said with a sarcastic tone. “I already have my doctor nagging me about that, I don’t need you too.” Zackery enjoyed a good whiskey or brandy here and there, which to some Saints looked like an addiction.
“Hey, nobody knows if you can cheat the death a third time too.” She argued, to which The Boss paid no attention.
Zackery walked to the middle of the cubicle, where the tattooing equipment and chairs once stood. It was one of the first things they threw out when they took over the hideout. He noticed the small bloodstain on the floor there.
“Why isn’t this cleaned?”
“We tried to Boss, but it got in the floor.” Pierce replied, explaining how the floor actually got soaked “I got my boys gathering some professional equipment, we’ll try to power wash that bitch out later this week.”
“Later when?” The Boss raised his tone as he didn’t like when things were getting delayed. This operation had to go down perfectly. “I want it done yesterday.”
“It’ll be done tomorrow, okay?” He got defensive with the Boss. Nobody liked when he raised his voice at them.
“Good.” He turned his look away from Pierce and started looking at the blood stain once again. “What happened to the kid?”
During his fight with the Maero, right after the fall, one of his main guys jumped Zack just as he was about to finish the giant, saving his life from the Boss’ aggression. Zack was so furious when this happened, that he grabbed a brick from the side and smashed Matt’s skull with it. If there’s a chance Matt survived the brick, he’d know for sure where Maero is hiding.
“Dead.” Ramona spoke, as she finished writing a note in her clipboard and turned towards the Boss. “You smashed his nose with the brick,” At this point, everyone heard all about the Boss’ encounter with Maero, not to mention that finding a brick next to Matt’s bloodied head was a dead giveaway “kid drowned in his own blood. Pobrecito …”
“Drowned?” Zackery was visibly confused. “How?”
“Blood went deeper inside and into his lungs. Saw it too many times happen.” Ramona explained, she had a fair share of experience when it came to seeing dead bodies, especially those that drowned in the water, there was something unique about their expression which made it easy for her to tell.
“Well, shame.” The Boss rotated himself, now facing the left side of the small cubicle. “Ramona. Would you please join me outside?”
“Sure thing.” She placed her pen on top of the clipboard, as the Boss started walking towards the open garage door out of the warehouse. On the way out, they passed by Jovan playing with the wires by the garage door, trying to get the door to work again. He gave the two a small hey, to which Zack nodded.
Shortly after, the both of them were outside the warehouse, as Zack took her a little closed to the edge of the pier. He liked watching the calm waters of the Great Lake Michigan. The girl soon stood next to the tall man. Their size difference was very noticeable, as Ramona was a few centimeters shorter than The Boss’ shoulders.
She looked at the blue, beautiful water of the lake, staring at the mainland of North America. The coastline looked beautiful from Stilwater; the mirage in the distance made the land blend perfectly between the clear skies and blue water.
“Helluva view, huh Boss?” She tried to make a small talk; the woman could tell her Boss was also impressed by the view.
“You know why I wanna talk, right?” Zackery brought up the topic, right after ignoring her for a few short seconds after her question.
“About your idea?” When the Brotherhood fell and Zackery took a sick leave, his lieutenants decided to move in on the Brotherhood’s hideout and claim it for themselves. However, Zack had an amazing idea for it himself. He had a lot of contacts in Britain of various tastes in art and weaponry, and with Ultor’s ambitious future for Stilwater with the reconstructed Saint’s Row, more and more rich people with rich tastes are moving into the city, with the idea of settling in. This offers Saints a wider market of clients, if they could smuggle a lot of stuff rich people want in Stilwater without it going through customs, they’d be the richest gang in all of America. However, that wasn’t an easy task for them, as they needed a proper front where they could hide all of the incoming traffic from all the curious good Samaritans that believe the Saints’ actions are wrong.
“Yeah…” The Boss put his hand inside the blazer once again, this time pulling out a folded batch of papers. He handed the papers to Ramona. “We’re greenlit.”
“Oh…?” She sounded it curiously, as she took over the papers and started reading through them. It seems like over the last few days, the Boss registered a brand-new shipping company in the city hall; Great Lake Shipping. Ramona slowly read the document and she eyed down the name company’s ownership fell under. She raised her eyebrow “I’m the owner?”
“That’s right.” He paused for a second before continuing. “It’s a huge task ahead of you, but you’re the only one I can trust. Johnny doesn’t have it in him to run a business, I need Shaundi to take out the Samedi, and Pierce…” He paused, releasing a small sigh. As much as Pierce tried and did his job extremely well, the Boss didn’t feel like he could fully trust him not to mess this up with some complicated plan. Plus he couldn’t trust Pierce not to turn it into a strip club “he’s an airhead.”
“I don’t know if I-“
“Bullshit.” The Boss knew exactly where she was going with this, so he stopped her before she could finish her sentence. “You know how to use your brain; I’ve seen you do it. Plus, you grew up on a port watching stuff like this being done every day.” Additionally, she has been leading the Saints main effort in restoring the rundown warehouse. “And I already spent a couple of thousands getting you all this.”
The city was willing to sell Zack the plot for cheap, it has been run down for years now and if the leader of the Saints didn’t do anything about it, they’d simply fine him for endangerment of the public with an unstable structure.
“We’ll still need a lot of money to renovate.” Ramona argued, as she lowered her papers. “This place is a mess.”
“Don’t you worry your pretty little face about that,” The Boss stated, look at her for a brief moment and then back at the lake “it’ll be a couple thousands, maybe even a million to get the whole operation functional. But I need someone running the ship while I handle the money, can I count on you for that?”
“Okay, I’m in.” She finally gave in to the Boss’ suggestion, giving him a small smile to show her newfound confidence in this. “But I’ll need some help, I can’t do this alone.”
“Looks like Pierce just got a promotion…” With the Ronin and the Brotherhood done, Pierce has shown his worth and values to the Boss as a tactician; something he feels he won’t miss in his fight against the Sons of Samedi.
“I’ll go tell him right away.” Ramona smiled, as she turned around, but not before thanking the Boss for this opportunity. She ran back towards the warehouse to share the news with everyone else; leaving the Boss behind to enjoy the peaceful sight of the ocean.